After The Storm
by northernexposure
Summary: Another, happier, alternative to the "Lucas knows Ruth knows" idea. Vague spoilers for season nine.
1. Chapter 1

**After The Storm**

_And I took you by the hand__  
__And we stood tall,__  
__And remembered our own land,__  
__What we lived for_

_After The Storm_ – Mumford & Sons

A/N – another, ultimately much happier alternative to the "Lucas knows that Ruth knows" ending.

You're likely a bit sick of me posting so much stuff and probably also thinking, "How does she have the time, the lazy cow?" Well, I'm making the most of it before life becomes crazy again in about two weeks time. So there.

* * *

**1. Truth**

The Grid seemed so empty, without Lucas. Harry sat back in his chair, watching as his remaining agents went about their final tasks of the day. Beth looked even more pale than usual, but that was probably to be expected. This was her first experience of losing a work colleague. Harry remembered from experience the first time the same thing had happened to him. It was shocking how quickly the circumstances around one could change, irrevocably. Learning that lesson didn't take long in this job – young Tariq was testament to that. But those first few times… they were painful, whatever the cause - and whatever the outcome.

Dimitri was speaking to her now, leaning close in an attempt at reassurance. Harry noted the young officer's hand, and how it rested lightly at the small of Beth's back. He filed that piece of information away in the mental box marked 'Possible Issues'. Not that it needed to be. If Beth and Dimitri found comfort in one another, who was he to interfere? But they were both young and inexperienced – professionally at least, and the combination could be a troublesome one in their job. Emotional involvement between agents could create enough issues even without other complications.

God knew Harry Pearce was aware of that. And he was neither young, nor inexperienced.

As if some psychic link had told her she was in his thoughts, Ruth slid open his door. She still wasn't bothering to knock. Harry wondered how he'd feel if she actually began to.

"Ruth? How are things out there?"

She nodded. "Okay. Beth's shaken. So are Dimitri and Tariq, but they're coping better."

"Beth's lucky she'll have you to talk to when she goes home tonight."

He noted that Ruth's hands were fiddling with a pen. She hadn't done that in his presence for a while. It reminded him, with a pang of familiar regret, of times long past.

"Actually, they're all going out. For a drink. I think they want to stick together for a while."

Harry nodded. "A good idea. Are you going to join them?"

"N-no." Ruth swallowed, and he registered just how anxious she was. "Harry, there's something – something I need to talk to you about."

He'd leaned forward, elbows resting on his desk as he looked up at her. "Of course. Go ahead."

"No, not – not here,' she said, in a rush. "Please. Not on… not on the Grid."

Harry sat very still, watching Ruth's fractious fingers. "Very well. Where, then?"

"T-the roof? In thirty minutes? They-" she glanced over her shoulder, on to the Grid. "They should have gone by then."

Harry nodded. Ruth left without another word, and he realised belatedly that she hadn't met his eye once.

* * *

Ruth went up to the roof early. Her stomach was churning, and her fingers would not settle. She didn't take her coat, counting on the icy November wind to cut into her, separating her anxiety from her rational thought.

She had to do this. She knew she did. And yet, Ruth was dreading this almost more than anything else she'd done in her life. Destroying the confidence of the person you most respect and admire was an impossibly hard task. She'd thought about not telling Harry the truth, about letting it remain a mystery. But it was precisely her regard for him – professionally as well as personally – that had forced her hand.

Ruth did not want to deceive Harry Pearce. In her fractured, fragmentary life, he stood as the one constant. Tarnished a little, yes, but by his convictions, not his deficiencies – another reason to treat him with honesty. What Harry had done to her family he had done despite what was in his heart, not because of it. How could she deal less than honestly with him now?

London was bright in the early winter evening. Ruth leaned against the balcony and watched the colours of Whitehall mingle gently in the night air.

"Not often I find you up here first," Harry observed, leaning beside her and looking out across the capital.

She smiled, sadly. "Needed some air."

"That difficult?"

"More than you know."

Harry nodded, and seemed to be steeling himself. She wondered what he was expecting. Whatever it was, she knew it wasn't what she was about to say.

"Where do you think he is?" Ruth asked, quietly.

"Lucas?" Harry shook his head. "No idea. Russia, perhaps. Not a wonderful retirement prospect, but I think he probably made some contacts during his imprisonment. And the FSB would have him like a shot."

"No," Ruth said. "He wouldn't do that."

"I don't think any of us really knew him, Ruth. I know I didn't."

They stood in silence for a while. The rapid beating of Ruth's heart stopped her shivering in the cold.

"What I don't understand," Harry said, clasping his hands together over the railing. "Is how he covered his tracks so well. How he got away with it, essentially. Lucas was good, but some of the information he must have needed… the access… How did no one notice? And how he managed to disappear so cleanly…"

Ruth glanced at him, wondering if he knew, but there was no trace of subterfuge in Harry's face. She swallowed, hard, feeling the bile threatening to rise in her throat.

"Harry," she began, and stopped again when he turned toward her. His face was noble, stoic, but she could read the hurt there. He had trusted Lucas. As, in fact, he trusted her – implicitly.

"Sorry, yes," he said, taking a deep breath. "You wanted to talk to me about something?"

Ruth nodded. "H-Harry…"

He waited, tense but patient. She wanted to look away, but forced herself to look him in the eye.

"It was me."

Harry blinked, not understanding. "I'm sorry?"

Now she began to shake, her fingers trembling like leaves in the wind. Ruth crossed her arms. "It was me, Harry. I let – no, I didn't just let… I _helped _Lucas get away. You asked why no one noticed. But I did notice. I found out what he was doing, but I didn't report it. And then – then I helped him get out."

Harry stared at her as if he hadn't heard a word she'd said. His face turned to stone, and he turned toward the balcony again, gripping it as if it were the only thing holding him up.

"Harry?" Ruth asked, after a moment. "Please – please say something."

He shook his head. "Tell me you made that up."

"I didn't. Harry, I-"

He turned on her, fury sharpening his features. He was so incandescent with rage that Ruth actually took a step back.

"Don't you tell me there's a good reason, Ruth – don't you _dare_ tell me there's a good reason. My god! He framed a fellow officer, he stole state secrets, he may have betrayed his country – he _certainly _betrayed his friends and colleagues! And now you're telling me that you – that _you_-"

Harry stopped short as the shock hit him, and Ruth thought he was going to crumble. His knuckles were white against the rail.

"He didn't betray his country," Ruth said. "Harry, he didn't. That's not what this was about. And if there had been any other way – if he'd thought there was another way…"

"Why? _Why_?" Harry shook his head. "God, Ruth. God – don't you see the position you've put me in? If I don't report you, I'm colluding with a criminal, and if I do…" he made a harsh, painful sound in his throat. "Is that why? You thought I wouldn't just give you up, and so-"

"No! Harry, no!" It was Ruth's turn to be shocked, "I wouldn't do that, wouldn't use you like that. You know I wouldn't."

There was a moment's silence, in which he did not look at her. Then he nodded, sharply, once, acknowledging her statement, and turned away.

"Please let me explain," Ruth said, feeling tears threatening, but forcing them back. "Please, Harry. You have to know I wouldn't have done this lightly."

When Harry said nothing more, Ruth took it as an indication that she should speak. She began slowly, voice shaking, wondering how much confusion one person could cope with in their life before it all became unbearable.

"Maybe you won't understand this," she said. "Maybe we've become so separate from each other that it won't mean anything to you now."

Ruth didn't pause, afraid that if she did, she wouldn't be able to continue.

"I found out what he was doing. Confronted him about it. Lucas… John… It wasn't what I expected. It wasn't about politics, or money. It was about Maya. It was all about Maya."

Harry's voice grated in the darkness. "The Doctor? The woman he took with him?"

Ruth nodded, and this time she felt the tears gathering under her eyelids. "He just wanted to get away," she said. "He just wanted to walk away, from all of this, from everything he'd seen, and done. He just wanted to start again. With her. Harry, he'd been dead to her for _fifteen_ years. Fifteen years, he'd cut himself off from her because he thought it would be better for her."

Harry didn't say anything. Ruth took a breath. He still didn't understand, and this was the hardest part.

"Fifteen years," she whispered. "Fifteen years, not knowing what the person you love is doing, except for the fact that they're living their life. Without you. Without _knowing_ you. Without ever being able to know you, _ever_ again. I… _I_ had to do that, Harry. And I know what it does to a person. You move on, except that you… you don't. Not really. You can't, not if you really-" She took a breath, trying to steady herself. "That was only four years, and look what it did. Look how many people's lives it ruined."

He still didn't look at her, standing, motionless as a statue, at the balcony. Ruth shut her eyes briefly, before forcing herself to carry on.

"Lucas knew I had doubts. Not about what the service stands for, but about what it does to our lives. What it takes, and the little it allows us in return. It eats people up, Harry. And Lucas – don't you think he's given more than most? All he wanted was the person he loved, and a chance at happiness. And I thought he deserved that. I thought… I thought they both did. God knows, few of us get that."

The wind rattled across the roof, turning Ruth's tears to ice. She reached up a hand to wipe them away, empty, suddenly, of all emotion.

"Why didn't you come to me?" Harry asked, roughly, after a while. "Both of you. _Either _of you. Why didn't you discuss this with me?"

Ruth shook her head. "Lucas cares about you, Harry. He admires you, and the way you run Section D. He didn't want to place you in a difficult position. He was worried you would feel obligated to help him after his ordeal in Russia, and he didn't want you to compromise yourself."

"But he didn't mind you doing the same?"

"He wouldn't have willingly involved me. I put myself in that position by spotting his actions. And once I had found what he was doing, what was the alternative? To silence me?"

Harry's shoulders jerked at that. He turned to look at her, eyes dark and brooding. Ruth shrugged.

"You could have come to me yourself."

"No. My decision had to be mine alone. You're too valuable to this country. Whereas I… I'm expendable. As was Lucas."

Harry shook his head, denying her words, but Ruth knew that it was his heart speaking over his mind.

"Reporting me will set this all to rest," she said, softly, taking a piece of neatly folded paper from her pocket. "Lucas wrote this before he left. It exonerates the agent accused of siphoning money from the slush fund. He's included specifics to verify its authenticity. And he's left a document signing over his flat to him as compensation. Lucas was a good man, Harry, to the end. But his past overtook him. And I think we both know how devastating that can be. I don't blame him for taking this route."

She held out the paper, and Harry reached out, slowly, to take it.

"I'm sorry," Ruth said, quietly. "I know you will believe that I betrayed you. And that hurts me more than I can say. But I understood. And not to help him…" She shook her head, tailing off.

Harry turned away again, and Ruth took it as a dismissal. Her heart sank to see him, shoulders sloping in defeat. But what was done was done, and there was no changing it.

She left him there, on the roof, descending to gather up her things before slipping quietly out of Thames House.

[TBC]

* * *

A/N (2): Incidentally, I found out last week that a teen romance I wrote is going to be published by Random House. I know - I'm as surprised as anyone. It's far from being a work of literary genius, but I am proud of it, although I can't take sole credit for the plot – it was developed by a team of editors who then asked me to write it up. It will be published under the name 'Amelia Meade', (another pseudonym). But I thought some of you might find it amusing, if you were ever to see that name on a shelf somewhere, to point and say, 'Ooh, that's northernexposure, that is. She writes silly Spooks stuff.' It'll be my first full-length published fiction.

Sorry if me adding that offends/annoys anyone. I'm hanging my heart out there a bit mentioning it at all, really. Ho hum.

[END]


	2. Chapter 2

**After The Storm**

_But there will come a time, you'll see  
__With no more tears  
__And love will not break your heart  
__But dismiss your fears_

_After The Storm_ – Mumford & Sons

**A/N:** Thanks so much for the lovely reviews (and congrats!) to part one… Really glad you liked it. I hope this is satisfactory as a conclusion. Probably not too Kudos-like, this part, but then that's kind of the point of FF, right?

* * *

**2. Resignation**

Harry had stayed on the roof for a long time after Ruth had left that night. There was a buzzing in his ears, a rush of blood that went on and on, drowning out the vibrancy of London by night. But the time he finally left he was frozen, his hands hardly able to work the door handle. Inside, he was blank, as if bleached clean of thought and emotion.

He didn't go straight home. Instead he returned to his office on the empty Section D floor. He sat heavily in his chair and spread out the paper Ruth had handed to him. Harry read it, slowly, twice, and then folded it back up, locking it in his desk drawer.

The following day was Friday, and besides two Home Office meetings off the Grid, he also managed to schedule several other official encounters that made is presence in the building fleeting. He saw Ruth, briefly, thought the glass as she arrived at work, but he did not speak to her, nor did he look in her direction once she was seated at her desk.

The internal investigation into the events surrounding Lucas North's disappearance was set for the following week. By that time Harry was expected to have conducted his own inquiry into what happened, and would need to submit a comprehensive report which, should it prove unsatisfactory, could lead to further investigation from higher up.

By Friday night the buzzing in his ears had subsided somewhat. He reached home late, as usual, and sat in his favourite chair with a large glass of Lagavulin.

And he decided, finally, as the clock ticked towards 1am, that perhaps, one way or another, it was time for this to be over.

* * *

Ruth woke early on Saturday morning, although to say she woke would suggest that she had slept, which she had done only sparingly. She moved around her room quietly, unwilling to wake Beth, who had come in late. Eventually, made claustrophobic by the constraints of her own home, Ruth dressed and went out, stepping into the pre-dawn winter air and pulling her scarf up around her ears.

An hour later, as her watch was coming up to 7am, she found herself among the other early birds at Borough Market. Even at this time the market was lively, crowded with buyers, sellers, tourists and gawpers. The air, though, held a different quality to what would be heard later in the day – that strange, incomplete hush that can only exist in a city outside usual trading hours.

Ruth wandered among the stalls, trying pinches of this and tastes of that, but her sense of melancholy only grew. She should have known, she realised, that this place she'd so enjoyed visiting in the past would now only remind her of market days in Cyprus. And Cyprus led her on a familiar circuitous route through the things she most regretted in her life, beginning several years ago, tracing through more death and guilt and desertion than most people could be reasonably expected to weather, and returning to conclude, finally, on a cold roof in central London just two nights ago.

As she offered another lacklustre smile to another stallholder, Ruth decided to move on. Perhaps the Tate Modern would be a better target. She could lose herself in the Rothko room – had done so before, and hoped to do so again.

She was stepping into the dappled light beneath the viaduct, heading for Stoney Street, when she spotted him. Harry was leaning against one of the green wrought iron pillars, evidently waiting for her. He wore a pale blue shirt, open at the neck, his sleeves folded back to the elbows. His hands had vanished into the pockets of his dark trousers.

He straightened as she approached. Ruth felt her heart go into overdrive, but there was no mistaking that he was there for her, and so to avoid him would only delay the inevitable. She weaved through the crowd until they were only a foot apart. To her it seemed as if the muted hubbub had soothed to a silence around them, as if in fact they were the only two people there at all.

"Ruth."

"How did you…" She stopped, shaking her head. "Never mind."

Harry nodded, unsmiling, looking over her head to survey the crowd. "Probably just as well. For both of us." He looked down at her, and she saw how shadowed his eyes were. "Shall we walk?"

In silence, they headed for the river, leaving behind the growing crowds. It was mild for the time of year, and a bright winter sun was rising over the Thames. Ruth waited for Harry to speak, but he remained silent, even as the path opened out at The Anchor. The old pub's outdoor seating was empty, and Ruth thought that Harry might stop there, but he didn't. They walked on, through the subway, around the corner and past the Globe to the Millennium Bridge. Ruth remembered their first conversation in the aftermath of George's death, how Harry had tried to find some way past the monumental obstacle between them, and she had flattened his attempt.

Instead of walking up and onto the bridge, Harry stopped at the railing overlooking the Thames' shallow beach. Ruth stood beside him, looking down. The promenade around them was mostly empty – it wasn't even 8am yet – but down on the pebbles two treasure hunters were slowly sweeping metal detectors from side to side.

"I could walk along this river forever," Harry said. "But I suppose we have to stop sometime."

Ruth nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on the figures below: their arms swinging, methodically, first left, and then right.

"I've read Lucas' document," Harry went on, after a moment. "I think it will be enough to clear the agent he framed."

"Good. That's good."

"I would never have thought it of you, Ruth. What you have done – falsifying official information, aiding a rogue agent…" He let his words fall between them. "Such a lack of judgement."

His palpable disappointment in her was harder to bear than his anger. "Harry-"

"Do you know where he is?"

She shook her head. "No."

"If you're lying…"

"I'm not," Ruth said, wearily. "Harry, I have never lied to you, and I'm not now. I don't know where they went." She watched as Harry stared out across the water. His face was unreadable. "What are you going to do? About me?"

Harry bunched his shoulders. He was silent for a time, before he said, "Lucas isn't the only one of us who has given up everything for this country. More than once."

Ruth nodded, surprised by the relief that pulsed through her. She'd thought she was prepared for the consequences of her actions. But, after all, perhaps she'd only been thinking of Harry's reaction to them, not the larger picture of what was at stake for her.

"I'm not going to report you," Harry continued. "I think there's a way of making Lucas' confession known without implicating you. But-" he shook his head, "Ruth, what you did… what you allowed Lucas to do. You have no idea what ramifications that may have on future security for this country. We'll change protocols, as we always do after a breach like this, but still. The things Lucas knows…"

Ruth shook her head. On this point she had no doubt. "Eight years in a Russian jail, and he didn't break. Fifteen years he kept the promise to himself to protect Maya by his absence, despite…"

Harry shifted against the rail, shaking his head. "Both finite," he said. "You can't know-"

"I know what decency looks like, Harry. I know what dedication looks like. Commitment, duty, selflessness… I've seen those qualities. I've seen them exercised, by one person, to a fault – to his own detriment. I've worked with that, every day, admired that. So did Lucas."

Harry didn't say anything. Ruth looked down into the gently lapping water of the Thames, watching the morning light paint glinting chiaroscuro patterns on its surface.

"All of us in the service – we live our lives in between, Harry," she said, softly. "Between the lies of what the public knows, and the truths we deal with to keep them safe. Between the words, and the actions. That's where we are, and it's precious little space to make a life. So what room there is – we have to help each other take that, however little is left."

Harry was silent for so long that Ruth wondered if he'd heard anything she'd said, or whether he even knew she was still standing beside him. The noise around them was growing, the outer world encroaching as the day wore on.

"Would you do what Lucas did?"

Ruth was startled by the question, and not a little unsure of its meaning. "Which part?"

He turned to look at her, still leaning against the railing. "If the person you loved asked you to disappear – to run, with nothing but him… If that was the only way to leave the past behind and start again - would you?"

She looked at his face, and wondered how it would have looked thirty years ago, forty. Ruth wondered, even, if she would have given him a second glance, back then. The character held within the lines that scored his brow, his eyes, his cheek – for her, that was Harry Pearce. Without that… what kind of man would he have been, except not quite as much of the one he was today?

Ruth smiled slightly, and averted her eyes to watch a gull's landing disturb the water in front of them.

"You're asking the wrong question of the wrong person," she said, quietly. "Because he could no more abandon his country, his duty, his post than I could keep silent when the life of my family depended on me speaking. He could not do that, and so he would not ask. And I would not expect it."

She heard his slow intake of breath, and knew that he was still watching her, studying her face.

"God knows I'm no expert, Ruth" he said, his voice so low that she had to strain to hear it. "My failed marriage and my permanently lamed heart are testament to that. But… that sounded as if you were telling me you once loved me, and that perhaps you still do. Which I am sure cannot be the case, except I also thought I heard it in what you said on the roof, though I assumed I was imagining it."

Ruth's vision blurred, and she shook her head in disbelief. "Harry," she whispered. "Surely you must_ know _that love was never the problem."

"Then perhaps," Harry said, after another pause, "I might respectfully suggest that you, Ruth Evershed, begin to live by your own words."

Ruth looked up at him with a frown, and saw Harry smiling, if only a little, for the first time since she'd spied him in the market. "Sorry?"

"If we are here, together, in this in between life… if you do indeed love me, despite all your reservations, then for god's sake, Ruth…"

"Harry…"

"…marry me. If you're willing to risk everything to help another person be happy, this time, please god, make it me. Help me make this life what we can, whatever we are allowed of it. Because Christ knows, without you in mine, I am hopelessly lost. And if you try telling me again that working together is enough, I will seriously consider throwing you in the Thames."

She blinked, and felt tears slide down her face. Suddenly he was looming over her, turning her toward him.

"Ruth," he said, holding her by the arms and leaning in close. "How can people of my age and your intelligence find something so simple so impossible to handle? I love you. Every nuance, every complication, every difficulty. Everything pales into insignificance beside how empty life is without you. And I was there too, Ruth. In those four years when I did not see your face…"

She put her hands up to his mouth, trying to stop him. "Harry… you don't need to… I can't…"

He pulled her hands away and kissed her, quickly, insistently, repeatedly. "I do," he said, in between. "I do need to, Ruth, because I need you, and now I know that you need me, and everything else is just noise."

Ruth failed to stop him and eventually could do nothing but laugh. Her hands rested on his cheeks, giving in. "Yes," she said, when the onslaught slowed enough for her to speak.

"Yes, what?"

"I will marry you, Harry. I will. I _will_. But just-"

Ruth's words were lost as he kissed her again, deeply.

And then, after a while, she forgot what it was she was going to say.

[END]


End file.
